How long does it take you to write a chapter?

[AuthorsDread]

Given that everyone has a unique writing style, with chapter lengths varying from long to short, I am curious to know how much time you typically invest in each chapter, considering the evident effort that you put into your writing.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

For the initial draft, maybe an hour or two at most for 2k words. Then the editing can take anywhere from half an hour to a few days. Other drafts take more time but that's hard to calculate.

 

[APieceOfRock]

2 hours if it's a 5k words one. The hard part is getting started...
Maybe it can be shortened to an hour if I don't get so distracted by other things.
I may have ADHD

 

[AuthorsDread]

For the initial draft, maybe an hour or two at most for 2k words. Then the editing can take anywhere from half an hour to a few days. Other drafts take more time but that's hard to calculate.

Thank you for sharing your process with me. It's interesting to hear that you can produce a rough draft in just a couple of hours, but the editing process can take significantly longer. It's good to take the time to ensure your work is polished. And I agree that subsequent drafts can be more time-consuming, but the end result is worth the effort. Thanks again for your response!

2 hours if it's a 5k words one. The hard part is getting started...
Maybe it can be shortened to an hour if I don't get so distracted by other things.
I may have ADHD

I usually jot down my ideas in books prior to writing on the computer. I find that my creativity flow easier that way.

 

[Renaxan]

Varied, as I write heavily depends on the mood. I could always set the outline probably in an hour, but then filling in the detail and editing took me several hours to several days... because I got easily distracted.

Most of the time, I ended passed the deadline I set for myself (once a week) and forced myself to write.

 

[RedHunter2296]

I really want to know how they write in such a short time.

On average it takes me about 5-8 hours to write a chapter of 2k-4k words.

Of course, there are also particularities in my case, first of all English is not my main language, so it takes me even longer to proofread and edit everything, and also I always miss something that the readers always mention a mistake. And the other is that I tend to do a lot of research for almost anything to try to make the story as accurate as possible as long as there is no fantasy or sci-fi theme in front of it.

So things like writing a chapter a week for me are very complicated and challenging because basically, it means spending a free day of my time just writing.

 

[ManwX]

4 hours more or less

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

2 hours to 12 hours. It depends on how distracted I am

 

[Aader]

Depend on if I'm stoned, I used to be a pantser, and just write straight from my thoughts, but SOL began to suffer forcing me to stop and begin a rewrite, and thanks to Naver offering me a chance at serialize only to give it to another hopeful has the story in all kinds of confusion.

 

[Bobple]

Ehh, it varied on mood and how much of the chapter I have pictured.

But I say around on average 5 hours total to write and edit a 1.5 - 2K word chapter.

Obviously trying to improve, and I was much worse. There are times where I can get the whole thing done in 2 hours, but currently I'm unable to consistently enter that mind space.

It also depends on my what story I'm writing, some require extra time cause the story is just more detailed and I want to make everything accurate.

 

[Corty]

When I feel good and inspired, ~1-2 hours for a ~2-2.5k word chapter. Then ~1 hour of editing. If I am not fully inspired, then double that.

But many times I write around 600ish words, browse the net a little, do another 600. Go scene by scene. Although when I feel inspired I write the whole chapter out in one go.

 

[DonHon]

1 week for 1k words

 

[APieceOfRock]

2 hours to 12 hours. It depends on how distracted I am

When I feel good and inspired, ~1-2 hours for a ~2-2.5k word chapter. Then ~1 hour of editing. If I am not fully inspired, then double that.

But many times I write around 600ish words, browse the net a little, do another 600. Go scene by scene. Although when I feel inspired I write the whole chapter out in one go.

It's almost like everyone's having ADHD

 

[Rhaps]

It depends.
I write when I have something to study for, writing Is my form of procrastination. About 1.5k words in a day.
But if I'm high and on demon time, 10k+ in a single night and I won't remembered any of it!

 

[Corty]

@APieceOfRock I never was tested for it. Who knows.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

I don't know about how long I finish a chapter since I usually injected chicken blood everytime I want to write a novel.

But once I got diabetes, I was forced into rehabilitation out of my personal health and been doing good lately. Though my writing speed had immensely slowed down as a result and I've been focusing on RL matters, I still try to write about 50 words daily just to exercise my fingers.

 

[Deleted member 113259]

The number of hours varies but I can always write one chapter a day unless something happens.

 

[LilRora]

If it's about writing itself, I typically get a 3k word chapter done in 3-6 hours. Usually spread across two or three days, but that's only usually. I can do 2 chapters a day or one chapter per 2 weeks sometimes.

After that though comes a lot of edits, most of them as I write the next few chapters and realize I haven't added something obvious that should have been there. Those can take up to months, sometimes even after the chapter in question has been published.

It's almost like everyone's having ADHD

ADHD is a spectrum, not a singular state. Depending how you narrow it down, you may even say that half of human population has varying symptoms at various levels of severity.

I, for one, have seen many signs of what can be called ADHD in myself, but I was never diagnosed for it.

 

[Simo]

Damn, seeing all the hardworking authors in this thread and how everyone spends hours on editing is making me ashamed of myself. I usually write for 1 hour everyday, and re-read my chapter for any mistakes I might have missed.

 

[Aader]

Damn, seeing all the hardworking authors in this thread and how everyone spends hours on editing is making me ashamed of my self. I usually write for 1 hour everyday, and re-read my chapter for any mistakes I might have missed.

Used to be that way, but after filling out the story Bible for my stories I felt a need to change up the program. Every chapter is a self contained story arc, that each will link up to a overall season arc, which will contribute to the volume arc. A volume will contain 3 seasons, each season will have 10 chapters.